The M&M’s Mystery Part 2

For readers who missed part I, this mystery is set in a retirement home, where Mildred and Miriam have just become roommates.

Over the next month, Mildred and I formed a strong bond – she had a wicked sense of humor and, after a time, could mimic almost every one of the other inmates. With her knowledge of classical music, I wasn’t surprised to hear her humming some of the pieces Redwine played, including that often repeated symphony. In return, I treated her to some CDs of seventies rock and roll. Occasionally we danced to it, if you want to call moving our arms and hips dancing. But I swear it improved Mildred’s mobility.

    Then a most exciting thing happened. Someone died. And not from ‘natural’ causes.

    We noticed something amiss when Norma counted heads at breakfast and asked, “Has anyone seen Maestro Redwine?” When no one answered, she yelled for Tony and bustled off down the hall. Silence, followed by a scream. Almost everyone who could walk abandoned their breakfasts and headed for the double doors, but the massive Tony appeared and blocked us in. “Everyone stay put. There’s nothing to worry about.” He left, closing the doors with a solid thump.

    Mildred and I returned to our places at the table. “Where’s Massey? I don’t see him here either,” she commented.

    I looked around. She was right. He was also missing. Figures Nurse Wretched would only think about the Maesto..

    Just then we heard sirens, and we beat the others to the dining room window. Three police cars pulled up, red and blue lights flashing, and we watched as a bevy of uniformed men got out, looking grim. Then we heard clomping down the hall in the direction of…our room. I looked at Mildred, her face reflecting my surprise. “Something’s happened to Redwine or Massey,” she whispered.

    Our room sat kitty-corner to theirs, and I just had to get a look. “Come on, let’s find out what’s going on. I can get us into the hallway, but you need to look agonized. Is that in your repertoire?”

    She winked. “Gotcha.”

    I opened the doors and pushed Mildred into Tony, who stood guard just outside the dining room. “Tony, Mildred needs to use a bathroom. Right now.” My roomie assumed a pitiful look and hugged her stomach.

    He frowned at us. “Use the one across the hall.”

    “Can’t. She has special equipment in ours, and this is an emergency.”

    He paused for a minute, clearly trying to think. “Okay, go, but don’t blame me if Norma jumps on you.”

   As I pushed Mildred down the hall, a woman deputy stood in our way and put up her hand.  

   “Can’t go down there. Sorry.”

    Mildred gasped and clasped her stomach, looking miserable.

    “Look, my roommate here is in a wheelchair, needs to use a bathroom, and only ours has the equipment she needs. We’re old, for God’s sake.”

    “Alright, alright.” She moved aside and we booked it down the hall, glancing into room 208 as we passed.

    Mildred gasped. Redwine lay face down on the floor, blood pooled around him, clearly deceased. Someone had stabbed him in the back with a violin bow. Through the crowd around the body I could just make out Massey’s feet on his bed, and we could hear moaning. I pushed Mildred and her wheelchair to our room, opened the door and shoved her inside.

    “Did you see that?” she asked as soon as the door was shut. “But how? Can you really punch a violin bow into someone’s back? It’s not sharp enough.”

    “I don’t think it’d be that difficult,” I replied. “I saw cut-off strings dangling from the visible end. He…or she…would just have to hone the wood down. And know something of anatomy to do it, right?”

    “Definitely, to know just where to make the fatal insertion,” Mildred replied. “But what about motive? Who here would want to do him in?”

    “Well, I don’t think it would be Massey. He’d lose his musical director, unless they had a serious argument over a sonata. Did you hear the moaning?”

   “Yeah, I think it was Massey. Everyone else was upright. How can we find out if he’s a suspect?”

    We looked at each other and said in unison, “Tony!”

******

    After lunch that day – yummy creamed chipped beef on toast, which I’d heard several of our military veterans call shit on a shingle – we pretended fatigue and asked Tony to wheel Mildred to our room.

    You live in this place long enough, you learn everyone’s weaknesses, and Tony’s was Little Debbie Nutty Buddy bars. A friend of mine had sent me a huge box of Little Debbie products for Christmas. I would have preferred a visit, but you take what you can get. I saw Tony salivating when he first spied the box, so I gave him some. Now I’d use my strategic reserve of Nutty Buddies to get information. I’d deliberately left two packages on my bed before we left for lunch.

    “If that’s all…” he said, after wheeling Mildred in. His eyes drifted and then stopped like a laser pointer on what lay on my bed. He looked at me, his brown eyes pleading.

    “Yup, they’re for you, Tony, but we need some information in return.”

    “Ah, Miriam, my girl, you know that could get me in trouble. You’re always getting me in trouble.” He rolled his Rs, Boston Irish.

    Mildred wheeled her chair to face him and I sat down at my desk. “I need you to tell us what went on in Room 208 this morning,” I said.

    “But you saw everything when you went by the door, didn’t you?”

    “Not everything,” said Mildred. “Tell us, and those Little Debbies are yours.”

    Tony perched on the side of my bed, scooping up the two packages. “Mr. Redwine got stabbed with Mr. Massey’s violin bow. The police think Mr. Massey did it, but he was in no condition to defend himself to them because, the devil take him, he was out of it. I think he’d been drugged. Norma told me to help him get dressed, and the police took him to the hospital. Then the medical examiner showed up, pronounced Redwine dead and took the body off somewhere.”

    I made notes as he spoke. “So the bow definitely belonged to Massey?”

    “Probably,” he answered. “Mr. Massey has a number of bows, I’m not sure even he knows how many. But honestly? I don’t think he’s got the energy, the mental capacity, or the will to murder Mr. Redwine. And why would he? Music is his whole life, and I’ve never heard a cross word between them.”

     I thought for a minute. “Do you know who visits them?”

    Tony shook his head. “Both of them have visitors, but I don’t know who they are. I can find out, if you have any more of these…?”

    Mildred and I nodded vigorously and Tony left, happy and humming something that sounded classical.

    “Let’s go outside to talk,” I suggested.

    Mildred turned her wheelchair around. “Tally ho!”

    After making sure no one occupied the sun room, we slipped out the door to the patio and

sat, enjoying the warmth of the sun on our backs. “So, are we seriously going to try to find out who killed Redwine?” Mildred turned slightly to get more light on her face. “This could be fun!”

    “I’m in if you are, buttercup. Okay, we first need to find out if anyone living here has a serious grudge against Redwine.”

    “And just how do we do that?” My friend moved even further into the sun.

    “Google.”

    “Oh, goodie.”

    “We need to make a list of the residents,” I said. “I don’t know them all.”

    “Me either. We should probably count out anyone in a wheelchair or using a walker. They wouldn’t be strong enough to perpetrate the crime…”

    Spoken like a detective. I smiled.

    “…and anyone who is mostly deaf. That would put them at a distinct disadvantage when murdering him because they couldn’t hear anyone coming.”

    “That will leave us with maybe a third of the residents to investigate. We’re going to have to cozy up to those we don’t know and get their names and room numbers, at the very least.”

    “Speaking of rooms,” Mildred replied, “anyone with a room toward the end of the other hallway would probably not be a candidate. Too far to walk not to be spotted, especially at night.”

    The Rest Easy was a long, straight building, with wings coming off north and south of a central core consisting of reception, dining room, common room, and sun room. So I agreed with Mildred’s assessment. “Ready to get to work, partner?”

    “You bet. What’s for dinner?”

    Many residents considered meals to be the highlights of the day, and I feared Mildred now fell into that group. “Boiled beef. They use all of the beef allotment on one day.”